He worked in the same building where the Franks were hiding.. Not only was she carousing with German soldiers, but Nellys rowdy behavior earned her a stint in police custody. During his research for the book, Van Wijk learned that Nelly did far more than engage in flirtations with German soldiers. One year before his death in 1980, Frank told an interviewer he believed a woman made the call to the Gestapo. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation, https://www.history.com/news/who-betrayed-anne-frank. He and his team spent five years poring over every bit of pertinent material, setting up an extensive online database, and developing an AI program to help them sift through it all and find new connections. How were the people in hiding discovered? Summer of 1933. . Certainly, Maarten Kuiper received money for the betrayals he made.". Though the Nazis dissolved the council in September 1943, sending most of its members to concentration and death camps, van den Bergh and his family managed to escape deportationan exemption indicating that the notary had some kind of leverage, according to Pankoke. | Her writing created a trail to judicial documents from other parts of the Netherlands, resulting in the latest theory. But Anne was not yet famous and staff were overworked. Fox on Parkinson's: "Every day it gets tougher". The helpers did not trust warehouse worker Willem van Maaren. All Rights Reserved. And, during a 1994 lecture, Secret Annex helper Miep Gies let slip that the informant died prior to 1960. My aunt Willy [Nellys sister] was furious until she died in 2015, just before the publication, he said. He places books and bits of paper on the very edges of things in the warehouse so that if anyone walks by they fall off, Anne wrote in her diary in April of 1944. Barnouw, the historian, said the blackmail supposition is thin. A petty thief and unsavory braggart, Van Maaren was investigated shortly after the war, but nothing was proved. Among those captured was Anne Frank, a 15-year-old schoolgirl who had spent over two years living in the cramped safehouse with her parents and older sister. Specifically, the author believes Nelly was involved in the betrayal of the so-called Secret Annex Jews, including the iconic teenage diarist. Anne often wrote about good-natured Bep in her diary, including happenings in the large Voskuijl family of eight siblings. We strive for accuracy and fairness. When did the Franks decided to move to the Netherlands due to increasing tensions in Germany? In 2003, Carol Ann Lee came to a different conclusion in her biography of Otto Frank: the culprit was a man named Anton "Tonny" Ahlers, a member of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands. In 2002, author Carol Ann Lee argued the informant was Tonny Ahlers, a Dutch Nazi sympathizer who had previously been a business associate of Otto Frank. The men went down with whatever they could use as weapons and Hermann van Pels shouted Police. 2022 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. Click the link in that email to complete registration so you can comment. "He may have got money for it. Then, in 2016, a team of investigators, led by a veteran FBI agent, decided to bring modern. | Around the time of the investigation into the SS officer, Voskuijl ceased granting interviews, wrote Van Wijk. They had come very close to being discovered! "Otto Frank was of no more use to him in that sense, so he betrayed them," Lee said in the television interview. Nelly knew that Bep and her father were helping Jews. ", Ms Lee is also cautious but believes the secret of who shopped Anne Frank is there to be unearthed. Bruce Springsteen on "Nebraska," and the emergence of Springsteen the poet Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter, Despite decades of research, betrayal as a point of departure has delivered nothing conclusive, Ronald Leopold, Executive Director of the Anne Frank House museum, said in statement. "They were friends. Your Privacy Rights This should be part of her biography.. But Dutch government historians disclosed yesterday that two new theories about who betrayed 15-year-old Jewish schoolgirl Anne Frank to the Nazis in occupied Amsterdam are so compelling that they are reopening their investigations. Around the time of Nellys return, her relations with the family strongly deteriorated, wrote Van Wijk, including Johan Voskuijl physically beating his daughter. He was not betraying Otto Frank., Ronald Leopold, director of the Anne Frank House, points out that many missing pieces of the puzzle remain, telling the AP, I dont think we can say that [the] mystery has been solved now.. As The New York Timesreported, they hoped to bring new technology, including forensic accounting, computer modeling and even crowd sourcing research, to examine existing evidence such as Anne Franks diary and the Amsterdam building where the Franks hid. But despite suspicions, there was no conclusive evidence van Maaren betrayed the family. The time will come when we will be people again and not just Jews! All Rights Reserved. Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany, but she and her family fled the country and settled in Amsterdam after Adolf Hitler came to power. Investigators Are Turning to Big Data to Find Who Betrayed Anne Frank. Van Maaren pointed up the stairs, but the police already seemed to know exactly where to go. "We can never be just Dutch, or just English, or whatever, we will always be Jews as well. My sister and my oldest brother are still angry with me about the content of the book, Van Wijk told The Times of Israel. Voskuijls father, Johan, was also in on the secret of the Jews in hiding. All rights reserved. Lee "has no proof, but I can imagine this was the case. The Subdistrict Court dismissed the . Speaking with Marsha Lederman of the Globe and Mail, Sullivan says the researchers characterize the notary as a tragic figure, not as some kind of villain. Bayens tells the AP that [w]e went looking for a perpetrator and we found a victim., Van den Bergh gave that list as a way of keeping him and his family out of the extermination camps, Sullivan says. Anne wrote about it in her diary and attributed negative qualifications to him. Those hiding in the annex were wary of Van Maaren, and Anne Frank documented their suspicion in her diary. According to Pankoke, for Van den Bergh to have that level of protection, he must have had some leverage with the Nazis. But Pankoke said Van Maaren did not hold up as a suspect once investigators examined all the information they found. The trove of information is so large that a human in their lifetime might not be able to review it, Pankoke tells Stephanie van den Berg andAnthony Deutsch of Reuters. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Over the years, some 30 different suspects have been suggested as the possible culprit, from the wife of a warehouse employee, to the sister of Otto Franks typist, to Anton Ahlers, a business associate of Otto Frank who was active in the Dutch Nazi party. So the team has enlisted the Amsterdam-based data company Xomnia to develop algorithms that will analyze the documents, andperhapsreveal connections that have never been noticed before. Left unsigned, the message named van den Bergh as the person who'd reported the Franks' hiding place to the Nazis. Was Anne Frank's family betrayed? After 72 years, historians have a new The Anne Frank House undertook its own investigation and arrived at a surprising new theory in 2017, thanks to the efforts of a historian named Gertjan Brock. Photo collection: Anne Frank Stichting, Amsterdam / photographer: Allard Bovenberg, All 8 of us were just pleased that we had slept so well that night and not heard a thing., We had all stopped breathing audibly by then., Reconstruction: the arrest of the people in hiding. Willem van Maaren was one of the warehouse staff. "Number one, that during the time period of the betrayal, she wasn't in town," Pankoke explained. Reconstruction: the arrest of the people in hiding | Anne Frank House Willem Gerardus van Maaren (August 10, 1895- November 28, 1971) was the person most often suggested as the betrayer of Anne Frank. Ms Lee also claims that Ahlers was blackmailing Otto, first in 1941 by threatening to release a letter which would have led to his deportation, and astonishingly after the war too and even as recently as 1980 when Otto died. Advertising Notice The authors suspicions were deepened during interviews he conducted for the biography. In her diary, Anne reported various attempted burglaries and actual burglaries. Wilhelm van Maaren Wikipedia Republished // WIKI 2 These are two of the most frequently asked questions when it comes to Anne Frank. Another book posited that the suspect might be a Jewish woman. The evidence that led Pankoke's investigators to their conclusion pointed to the alleged betrayer as much as it ruled out other suspects including some who had previously been the subject of speculation. Historians have proposed competing hypotheses without definitive proof . Brigit Katz is a freelance writer based in Toronto. In Van Wijks assessment, there is no doubt Nelly knew about the Jews in hiding. For almost 60 years, the identity of that informant, whose call had such tragic consequences, has remained a mystery to historians and the most dogged Nazi hunters.
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